Tech & Geeky Goodness

A very special friend has spent the day installing Linux on my new computer, as I have wanted for a long time. It's wonderful. Now just have to install the GPG so I can use my encryption keys, and I'm all set. Just so you all know... Mama finally did it! :)

And it is largely thanks to two wonderful gentlemen: MAL and the Happy Curmudgeon.

Despite driving all over two counties yesterday—and getting a later start than I’d wanted on my day—I got a fair amount accomplished yesterday. I’ve already hinted at the first ...

I think it’s official: my computer is wanting to bow out. Intermittent display problems continue to plague it; and I discovered that GPG did something very weird with the last text I attempted to encrypt. I think I have a fairly recent backup of my home directory on an external device, and most of what I’d lose if I need to use it to recover are bookmarks.

I’m back! The problem with my machine turned out to be an exploded video card, which I fixed myself (with MAL’s help) after the mofos I took my computer to were unbelievably slow about getting it on the bench. It turned out to be a very easy thing, hardware–wise: just plug the new card into the slot and reconnect the monitor. Software–wise, it was a bit more tricky, as nVidia and Linux don’t always get on well, but I think I’ve got those issues behind me as well.

I’ve volunteered to help an international group update its web site. One of the first things I noticed about the site is that it has no character set specified ... and yes, there are problems in getting apostrophes to render properly on some pages, and likely other characters too.

The bulk of the text will be in English, but there will be non-Latin characters used from time to time. I know how to use the numerical codes to generate those, but I’m wondering: is there a character set I should choose that is optimal for rendering mixed-language text? Or am I overthinking this issue?

Thanks in advance for all contributions!

Anyone of Sunni's 11 readers not using some anonymous search method? If yes please reconsider. I use scroogle and tor on top of it if it is really confidential, but then again, I am not paranoid. I know someone is out to get me.

Someone is out to get you too.

BTW, I have no opinion on the campaign itself.

Been trying to catch up with doings, both online and off–, and am lagging at each. (But I did learn how to purl at my last knitting lesson—woo hoo!) So much going on ... and behind the screen is a summary of stuff of most interest to me, and which I think may be of interest to a few of you.

Yes, it’s sadly true: I had been contemplating getting an iPhone if prices dropped enough. TracFone’s coverage, customer service, and features leave a lot to be desired ... maybe I’m expecting too much from a relatively cheap product, but I don’t think so. Rather, I think that’s part of the problem—by piggybacking on others’ work (cell phones and networks) TracFone doesn’t have as much invested in their brand or name. And for me, some aspects of their operation no longer make sense. Actually, some never did: being forced to keep one’s phone active by buying more airtime is annoying ... and I’m facing that situation again in a few days.

Seems as though the controversy I stirred up has trashed the system. Or maybe it's just that I'm running Opera on a Windoze machine, who knows, but many of the links to the latest posts (you know, the ones that are in that section on the right-hand column of this blogesque thing?) don't work. It appears that the Genetics as Religion (or whatever I called it) thread has transmogrified into two pages, and anything on the "second" page is only accessible by luck, persistence or shear fantasy, but not by actual intent.

I don’t recall how I came upon it, but I have spent far too much time mulling the various messages offered by the essay You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss. In an effort to move on and get something productive done today, I hereby announce my intention to fob off at least a few of them on to you readers.

It’s a fairly common trick for feuding bloggers or fora to block certain referrers—in English, what that means is that if one clicks a link from one site to the other, which is blocking traffic from it, one will not get the desired content. You’ll get something like a 403—permission denied.

One way around that is to copy–paste the link into a new browser window or tab. But that’s tedious. Firefox can be tweaked to keep all referrer information—viz., the site where one clicked on a link to get to a second site—hidden. This is a permanent workaround for referral blocking (but not IP bans). It’s also a good privacy measure in general.

Here's where I went to find out how to put an image in my last post...

HTML Code Tutorial Dot Com

(No more excuses now, Mama! ;-) )

- NonE

My RSS feed just brought me THIS GEM on the wastefulness of most modern electrical devices we often take for granted. As I live "off the grid" by means of solar power (for the most part) I have found that one of the keys to an abundant life is "waste not, want not." Each device that I have plugged into my electrical in-home-grid has a switch controlling it*, and unless I am using that device at the present moment, that switch is turned OFF.

Yes, I know (or I think I do) what you’re thinking: Sunni doesn’t run Windows, so why’s she going off on it again? There are two Windows machines in the house: one of the Snolf computers, which rarely goes online; and one of the teenagers runs it on his machine, because he’s deeply into gaming.

We got FAPped last Friday. We had been getting FAPped fairly regularly on Friday, so I asked everyone to check their machines to make sure auto-updates are really, truly disabled, and to check for other potential leaks. They all pooh-poohed me ... and so [you can see this coming, right?] I’m on deadline today ... and we’re FAPped again. And this time, probably because Lobo’s home, they did check—and it appears Mr. Windows has a virus or trojan, as 200M of something was uploaded in the wee hours of this morning (and yesterday morning).

Once I get my copy written, my plan was to try to catch up on my mounting email backlog ... that may or may not happen, as I don’t think I’ll have sufficient patience left for sitting and waiting while pages load agonizingly slowly. Sorry. Blame Windows and the careless teenager.

P.S. Now that the few kinks in my Kubuntu upgrade are behind me, my machine is probably the most solid one in the house—and that includes the three Macs that live here. The only problem I (rarely) have is Firefox freezing under heavy load—but I’m talking a seriously heavy load for that to happen. Pengy power FTW!